


Tucked away inside your sleeves

by 62miles



Category: SHINee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, M/M, Minor Character Death, Pre-Slash, coping with loss, genius!Taemin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-13 03:25:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10505439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/62miles/pseuds/62miles
Summary: "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." The colors that made up Jinki were bleeding over the lines, thinning out the syllables falling from his lips.





	1. Wounds

**Author's Note:**

> I began this story in the summer of 2011, the boys' first Korean gap year. At the time, I had only experience the Lucifer(/Hello) Era as a fan. (This is supposed to be an explanation for Taemin's hair, as I envisioned it while writing.) Back then, I only really settled into writing this thing around chapter four. So now that I'm editing and reposting it to AO3, I don't know what pace to go at.
> 
> Set in an imaginary country that functions like South Korea-North America hybrid, this is a story about losing important someones, dealing with that loss, and dealing with the loss of important someones suffered by someone important to you.

 

  
  
  
  
"Hey. How are you feeling?"  
  
  
Weaving a path around a few partially packed boxes, Taemin pads quietly over to his roommate's side. As he waits for an answer, he wriggles his toes into the fabric of his socks. There is a small hole by the big toe of his left foot and through it he can feel the coldness of the varnished floorboards. Out of habit, he flips his bangs away from his eyes with a small jerk of his head, but the moment he leans over to peer at the older boy's expressionless face, his hair is in all the places he doesn't want once more.  
  
Balancing one mug of roasted barley tea in each hand, Taemin folds his legs beneath him and sinks to the floor.  
  
"Hey..." He tries a second time.  
  
  
The boy sprawled out by his knees doesn't quite respond, but those unfocused eyes find their way to Taemin's face and start seeing again. Almost immediately after the change, the boy – Jinki – curls up into himself like a shriveled up leaf. His eyelids droop for a moment, only to flutter open again when Taemin speaks. To Jinki's ears, that familiar voice seems to come from infinitely far away. He knows Taemin is talking, but he can't quite make out the words. He tries to lip read, but the effort is futile when his roommate is trying just as hard to keep his lips artificially glued into a small smile.  
  
A small reassuring smile, probably.  
  
  
He thinks his roommate might have a gift for ventriloquism.  _Hyung, how are you doing?_ The smile asks.  
  
  
Jinki merely blinks at the hovering Taemin. He stares at the younger boy's mouth and pokes at his own, absently trying to copy that curvature. But the thing that he's attempting to replicate falters a little – maybe Taemin is disappointed that he isn't saying anything back, maybe Taemin is trying to not laugh at his ridiculous actions.  
  
  
  
"Come, sit up. You shouldn't be lying on the floor; you'll catch a cold like this."  
  
  
  
A mug is set down on the floor, out of his sight, but Jinki knows, not because he hears it but because he feels the vibrations against his cheek. Then a hand pats his shoulder encouragingly. _Get up_ , it says, _you can do it_. What ensues is a tug-of-war between the hand's insistence and his own inertia. He isn't sure which side he is rooting for but after a while, he decides a compromise might not be so bad and unfurls a bit. Unsatisfied by the miniscule progress, the hand moves down to grasp his fingers.  
  
"God you're cold!" The smile gasps. Or not the smile. The mouth.  
  
The smile's long gone.  
  
Another mug is placed onto the floor and two hands now are pulling on his arm. And before he knows it, there he goes! Up and up and up, against gravity. Like a carrot plucked right out of the soil. A tree uprooted. And with it, his own coarse voice is wrenched free from the confines of his aching throat.  
  
  
  
"Spring's a little late this year, huh?"  
  
  
  
An involuntary tremor runs through the hands that are still holding on to him.  
  
"Yeah. A little." Taemin answers but doesn't ask.  
  
  
  
Somewhat stiff from spacing out on the floor, Jinki feels the complaint of each joint as he straightens out his back. With a meaningless little hum, he takes the proffered mug. Taemin then picks up his own and drinks a few tentative mouthfuls of the hot bitter liquid even though it scalds his tongue. But Jinki doesn't do the same. Jinki just holds the mug between his palms and lets the heat radiate up his forearms. And holding onto the mug, he stares down silently at the bright healthy glow that the cartoonish sunflower designs and the happy orange background are casting against his almost bloodless skin.  
  
  
  
And then he can't help it.  
  
He thinks of the day he moved in. He thinks of it, one more time. (It's a memory that has been tirelessly replaying inside his head ever since he settled into a window seat on the train on his way back here. Like a silent film, projected against the glass, the dirt, the patterns of light. And each time the reflection of the man sitting in front him flipped a page in the newspaper, the memory would reset itself...)  
  
That day, after what he swore to be a year's worth of physical labor, he was ready to drink a lake dry. Driven by that thirst, he dug through all of his belongings only to discover that he was missing a box, _the_ box, the one with his Tupperware, bowls, utensils, and travel mug. The thought that he could simply drink tap water out of his hands didn't stymie his groan of despair in its escape. But in the next moment, the sunflowers showed up before his eyes.  
  
And from that day onward, they have always been here, with him.  
  
But—and there is always a _but_ —  
  
This is the last time that he'll get to borrow the mug, isn't it? Today is the last day for a lot of things.  
  
He has always known. He has always known that it isn't forever. But he has never expected the ending to arrive like this.  
  
  
  
  
  
Jinki slowly lifts the sunflowers to his mouth and carefully lays his lips against the smooth ceramic. In that instant, his red rimmed eyes glaze over.  
  
And he holds perfectly still.  
  
  
  
"Hyung, _please_. Stop." Taemin pleads before he even considers what he is saying.  
  
This time, Jinki doesn't blink. He doesn't blink, but he unwittingly makes an unintelligible sound at the back of his throat. Like a steel beam groaning under stress. Like a wooden plank complaining right before it snaps in two.  
  
  
"Stop holding it in. At least when you're in front of me, stop holding it in."  
  
  
  
The words have barely left Taemin's mouth when Jinki's serene expression contorts into one of agony. And then the tears, the tears are smearing themselves against the gaunt planes of his cheeks. What a mad rush it is, how they can't seem to do it fast enough. All that fails to cling onto his skin plummets into the mug and the clear ocher liquid pulls them into its depth and swallows them right up, as if they have never existed in the first place. His trembling hand clanks the bottom of the mug clumsily against the floor and pushes the thing away in an attempt to save it from a messy end. He doesn't trust his shaky grip, not now, definitely not now.  
  
Crossing his ankles, he draws up his legs to his chest and hugs them like a life buoy. His shoulders collapse as he buries his face into the crevice between his thighs. He then rearranges his arms in order to shield the back of his head with his hand. He's not much of a contortionist, but he tries, just so he can become a perfect ball of human misery.  
  
Or not perfect, since humans don't make for much of a perfect anything, really.  
  
  
  
Taemin puts his own mug down and shifts himself forward onto his knees. He reaches out, and out and out and out, and finally touches him. And he does the one thing that he thinks he can do for Jinki in a moment like this. Encircling the quivering pile of limbs with his skinny arms, he crushes everything against his aching sternum. He runs his hand up and down the older boy's back, as if he could smooth out the shudders like wrinkles in a book. It's alarming though, alarming how he can count each individual vertebra through Jinki's thin cotton shirt like beads on an abacus.  
  
But he doesn't panic at the realization; instead he tightens the already painful embrace, letting Jinki's elbow dig a little deeper into his ribs.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Jinki cries very quietly.  
  
  
That is something Taemin learned a while ago. And for as long as he has known, he has wondered how much practice it takes to cry without sound.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Wishes

 

  
  
  
  
Make a wish, they say.  
  
  
Make a wish when it’s 11:11. Make a wish when you blow out the candles on your birthday cake. Make a wish when a shooting star traverses the night sky. Break a wishbone. Toss a coin into a fountain. Rub an old lamp and pray that a genie pops out (in which case you get not one but _three_ whole wishes!). Then clasp your hands together and close your eyes. Hold your breath and silently say the thing that you want.  
  
  
  
Make a wish.  
  
But remember that as far as wishes go, you can’t sue clocks or candles or oil lamps for false advertising. And you certainly shouldn’t expect meteoroids or furculae or pennies to come with a warranty. When wishes don’t come true, they simply don’t.  
  
  
  
  
  


......

  
  
  
  
  
_I just want a second chance._  
  
Jinki speaks as if he has a cold, complete with heavy nasal intonation and slurred pronunciation and all.  
  
  
  
Taemin still has the older boy’s face against the hollow of his shoulder when he hears that sentence. He shivers from the way Jinki’s breath runs over his neck and a little something dies inside of him. Isn’t a hug supposed to make things better? But no, this isn’t better. They have had that conversation before and Taemin is certain that this isn’t what better looks or sounds like.  
  
 _I w-want to talk to them again..._  
  
  
  
Unlike before though, Taemin doesn’t wish for Jinki to stop talking. He doesn’t wish he could run away. He doesn’t wish for things to be magically okay. Instead, he gathers up the courage to pull back. Those heavy-lidded eyes are half shut, the bruise-like shades of purple outlining them so vivid that when the younger boy runs his fingertips over the soft swollen skin, he half-expects the colors to smudge. Jinki’s dark unsmiling gaze is hauntingly hollow, but in the space between his eyelashes, Taemin can still make out his own reflection. And so Taemin knows – now he really _knows_ – how stupid it is to hope that despite having a 24-hour clock, 23:11 isn’t against the rules.  
  
  
Dumping his life savings into a fountain won’t change a thing.

Driving avian species into extinction won’t save the boy he loves.  
  
  
  
  
  
Wishes may not come true, but there he still is, in the space between Jinki’s eyelashes.

  
  
  
  
  


......

  
  
  
  
  
Kids are brought up in a fantastical world of superheroes and princesses, spaceships and flying carpets, giant robots and unicorns. A world where anything and everything is possible with a wave of the wand and an abracadabra. But Taemin has always been a little different. He begins marking down October 23rd in his calendar as Mole Day long before the rest of his class learns how to skip two on the monkey bars. He recites the decimal places of pi when he can’t fall asleep at night while his older brother is still struggling with dividing one fraction by another.  
  
However, despite never having believed in tooth fairies and Santa Claus, Taemin does make wishes. His first is made on his sixth birthday, after which he figures out it is a whole lot easier to get the present he wants by talking to his parents, and his second is made almost twelve years later, on a Tuesday.  
  
  
  
On Tuesdays, Taemin has an astrobiology class that overlaps with Jinki’s biochemistry lecture by half an hour. His ends at noon, leaving him with a perfect one-and-a-half hour window for a leisurely lunch before he must head over to his nonlinear dynamics seminar. Jinki, on the other hand, still has an hour of cellular processes left to go through by 12:00. And it is an hour followed, without fail, by a ten-minute mad dash to his physiology lab during which he would wolf down a gimbap roll (or two).  
  
It’s the one lunch per week they can’t manage to eat together.  
  
  
  
On that particular Tuesday, Taemin had one foot out the door of the lecture hall when his cell phone rang. _Weird_ , was his first thought. At his unspoken request, his parents followed a strict schedule for call times and they would never phone this close to when he had class. His circle of friends was pathetically small and whenever any of them needed him, they’d go to Jinki instead. And it couldn’t be Jinki because he was (surely nodding off) in biochem.  
  
Allowing himself to be swept towards the stairwell by the moving crowd, Taemin pulled out his phone to check caller ID. The unfamiliar number ruled out anyone from the lab he was working at for his honors project. Actually, even just the area code ruled out anyone he knew. Hesitantly, he picked up.  
  
  
  
  


_Hello?_

  
  
  
  
  
Moments later, Taemin’s legs locked, rooting him seven steps above the next landing. No one saw it coming and the guy behind him bumped into his elbow. His phone flew out of his grasp and somersaulted its way down the steps, bouncing off some girl’s salt-encrusted boot before skidding to a stop against the wall. He watched its journey without much emotion and was only brought out of his stupor by a flash of light arcing through the air, the cause of which he caught reflexively.  
  
  
(He tried to say thanks, but for a moment he couldn’t remember what that word sounded like.)  
  
  
The object – his cell phone – held together long enough to come apart only once in the safety of his cupped hands. The back panel came loose and the battery fell out. Taemin spent a few seconds staring down at what he was holding. In that time, he felt something akin to panic seeping out of his stomach and into his bowels.  
  
  
With nimble fingers, he reassembled the pieces. And after a mere few seconds’ effort, the thing looked so whole and unharmed that he was tempted to put it to his ear again.  
  
  
  
  
Except he wouldn’t be able to hear that voice, that slightly hysterical voice breaking down on the other end.  
  
  
  
  
As he sank down onto his haunches, that mess of half-spoken words was still milling about restlessly inside his right ear. His toes, in their desperation, tried to grip the edge of the stair he was on, but the soles of his boots were too thick, too unyielding. Eyes fixed onto the most recent entry in his call history, Taemin suddenly wished it were Friday instead of Tuesday. He scrolled down and down and down, wishing and wishing, but he eventually ended up back at that same phone number and nothing had changed.  
  
  
  
Only if it were Friday already.  
  
Then it would be April Fools’. And if it were April Fools’, he would have the right to laugh it off – the melodramatic quality of it – and begin plotting his revenge.  
  
  
  
  
But it was a Tuesday.  
  
As he pressed _call_ , it was still a Tuesday.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Throughout the first ring, his mind galloped at a mile a minute. And yet for all that speed, he couldn’t muster enough articulation to diversify the string of _shit, shit, shit_ being churned out by his neurons like half-finished products on an assembly line.  
  
Someone picked up on the second ring and the first wish that Taemin made in twelve years’ time became little more than a fleeting thought.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	3. Fears

 

 

  
  
  
  
And after that twelve-year gap, the interval between Taemin’s wishes suddenly shortened into hours, minutes.  
  
He didn’t give much thought to the fact that unmade wishes weren’t some sort of collectible credit, automatically carrying over year after year; he simply made them one after the other, now that he actually had the occasion to do so. He wished for all that he couldn’t do and couldn’t have and couldn’t stand to be without, as if behind his back, procedural memory were guiding his fingers into creasing the vowels, folding the consonants, tucking in the punctuations. Turning ordinary words into paper cranes and ordinary thoughts into straw stars.  
  
  
  
It wasn’t that he was greedy though. No.

It’d never been about greed.  
  
  
  
Even if that was what it felt like, sometimes.  
  
  
  
  
  


......

  
  
  
  
  
Taemin found himself in front of his dorm room, three metallic numbers glaring back at him and the air too thin for his liking. It took approximately three and half seconds longer than usual for him to fit the key into the lock, almost six more to turn it clockwise. And it was only then that he realized the door hadn’t even been locked in the first place.  
  
Soundlessly, he pushed on the handle, and there, framed in that sliver of space, was a familiar figure standing by the foot of their beds. The older boy was half-shielding his eyes as he desperately wiped at something on his face, his chest rising and falling arrhythmically. The ragged noises met Taemin’s eardrums like a knife against his wrist.  
  
  
_Crack._  
  
He lifted a hand to his chest. Was that his seventh rib?  
  
  
  
  
Taemin saw himself flying across the distance between them, outdoor shoes and jacket and backpack and all, and throwing himself at Jinki like a defensive tackle at a ball carrier. Although he was not of the right height or build to be a real lineman, his target had always lacked the right sense of balance to stay upright anyway. It never took much to knock him off his feet.  
  
But the younger boy blinked once and he found that he wasn’t slamming into the floor with his best friend flailing beneath him. Instead, he was toeing off his boots and unzipping his jacket. Instead, he was putting his shoes away. When he straightened up, he was met with the sight of Jinki's back.  
  
  
His mind stalled then.  
  
And the silence stretched.  
  
  
  
The silence stretched and stretched until there wasn't enough room between it and the walls for him to ask the questions he already had answers to – what was wrong, was he feeling okay, why wasn’t he at his lab. But other than those useless things, what else was there? Did he confess that he knew? Did he explain how he found out? Did he tell him how sorry he was?  
  
Taemin wished he knew what to say at a time like this.  
  
  
  
  
  


......

  
  
  
  
  
As the corners of his mouth lifted themselves into a _hey_ that never quite left his vocal cords, Taemin plucked one foot out of the knee-deep cement that seemingly filled the room and set it down in front of him. Then he tugged his back leg free and moved it forward. It hit him some time between his third and fourth step that he was no longer able to tell what distance was too close, what distance was too far. He thought he probably should hug the older boy, sit him down, rub his back, hold his hand, but the actions – as much as he rehearsed them inside his head – were as unforthcoming as the words.  
  
Taemin’s hand was hovering a few inches away from Jinki’s hunched shoulder when the older boy flinched away, almost as if burnt by the guilty hesitation pooling in the younger boy’s fingertips. But in his attempt to put some space between them, Jinki’s foot managed to catch the back leg of a chair. Taemin instinctively grabbed a handful of Jinki’s clothes and stepped forward to brace himself against the shift in their center of gravity. But for once it didn't help – the heel of Jinki’s other foot was in the way.  
  
The floor rushed up to meet them.  
  
  
  
  
  
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”  
  
Even before Taemin could scramble up onto his hands and knees, the apologies rushed out. Apologies, not so much for falling on top of him as for all the things that weighed more heavily than his own one hundred and twenty pounds. “Are you okay? Sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t mean to…”  
  
Jinki didn’t respond. He didn’t even attempt to turn over and get up. If anything, he adjusted his head so that he had his nose perfectly pressed against the wooden floorboards. Taemin panicked. The appropriate thing to do – the _right_ thing to do – was a needle lost in a haystack and all he could be certain about was that he was coming up with fistful after fistful of nothing but dried grass. Using more force than he intended, he grabbed Jinki’s right shoulder and flipped him over. The moment he did so, however, the older boy's hands flew up to his face and he twisted further to the right, trying to complete a three-sixty log roll in order to hide again.  
  
  
  
_I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry..._  
  
  
  
Everything was smudging together, everything he wanted and everything he feared.  
  
The colors that made up Jinki were bleeding over the lines, thinning out the syllables falling from his lips and pooling in the triangular dip between those familiar collarbones. _I'm sorry._ Taemin forgot for a moment whether he was pleading with Jinki or trying to comfort him, but he figured it all amounted to the same if he could keep that door open. Or maybe it was a window and not a door. But _what_ it was, wasn't important; he just had to be on the same side of it as Jinki.  
  
Even if it cost him all his fingers and toes, they had to be on the same side of it.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
It was the first time Taemin had ever fought for something.  
  
The first time he'd felt threatened enough to fight. To need to fight.  
  
  
  
And by the end of it, he was half-sitting on Jinki's stomach, arms shaking from the effort it took to pry the older boy's hands away from his face and fingers still tightly clamped around two surprisingly bony wrists. The left sleeve of Jinki's gray sweater had ridden up his arm during the struggle and Taemin could feel it – an erratic beat thumping against his fingernails.  
  
The older boy had surrendered.  
  
  
Trying to swallow the almost tangible pressure building up at the back of his throat, Taemin shifted his knee off of Jinki's torso and gently let go. Two limp hands dropped immediately to the floor like lifeless stones, knuckles banging against the wood. He blinked, once, twice, and then furiously, but even so, the image swimming before him refused to bring itself into focus.  
  
  
Jinki's eyes were tightly shut against the world and the skin surrounding them red from friction. That much he knew.  
  
_But is he crying? Is he crying?_

Taemin couldn't tell.  
  
No matter how far in he leaned, he couldn't tell.  
  
  
  
And then suddenly the pair of hands that had been resting motionlessly on the floor came to life. Catching Taemin by surprise, they shoved him to the side and the back of his head was accidentally introduced to the armrest of the chair that Jinki had tripped over. Inhaling sharply, Taemin drew up his knees and toppled over as his own hands flew up to nurse the burst of pain in his skull.  
  
  
" _Fuck_...!"  
  
The air trembled with the soft falsetto note. It took Taemin a few seconds to realize that he had sworn out loud.  
  
In his dictionary, expletives had always been inarticulate things, but suddenly there was so much clarity in this one simple word. So much clarity that he could feel his ears buzzing from the way the exclamation was bouncing off the roof of his mouth, the walls of his sinuses. His chest swelled with something in the sloppy likeness of renewed courage as it rippled down the fibers of his body. It filled him with enough wonder to put him on the verge of chuckling, except he couldn't. He couldn't laugh.  
  
The idea of it rattled around inside his lungs for a while, but his mouth refused to form the right shape.  
  
  
When the physical pain had dulled, he lifted his watering eyes to the gray shape peaking over the edge of the bed. Jinki had drawn up the hood of his sweater and was huddled in the narrow space between his bed and the wall. Had the mattress been taller, he would have been perfectly concealed from sight. Invisible. Out of reach. Safe.  
  
That was all it took to undo the joints that held Taemin's bones together.  
  
  
  
"Fuck."  
  
The single syllable tumbled from his lips again, but less naturally so this time. His voice was a little louder, a little deeper, and the word weighed a little heavier on his tongue.  
  
He might have lost the fight after all.  
  
  
_This isn't fair_ , he wanted to say.  
  
  
  
A husky "I'm sorry" – not his own – bridged the gap of silence before Taemin said it a third time:  
  
"Fuck..."  
  
  
This one was spelled out with despair instead of letters. He knew how scared he sounded, how scared he _was_. And the profanity was beginning to taste completely wrong in his mouth, a persistent caustic bitterness creeping up the insides of his cheeks. Pulling down the sleeves of his shirt past his fingertips, he mopped up the mess spilling from his eyes.  
  
  
"I'm sorry." The crack in Jinki's voice was muffled by the fabric of his sweater. "Sorry."  
  
Taemin bit his lip and said nothing. Absently, he pressed his finger nails into the fissure between two floorboards and began running them back and forth. With the perfectly straight groove guiding his motions, he could almost believe that his hands weren't shaking.  
  
"Um...something, something came up at home, a-and......sorry, I just need a moment." Jinki paused. "I just need a moment to calm down... I've been try...trying to get...myself together...mm......it hasn't been......working so well. Sorry. I don't know I just...I j-just...... I'm sorry about being like this. It's just...um......but I really need to call my sister...to talk to her and stuff, so......so...you know......"  
  
  
  
_Hyung..._  
  
  
"I just n-need a moment."  
  
  
_I understand._  
I know. I know.  
  
  
"I know." Taemin breathed. "Hyung, it's okay, I know..."  
  
  
  
  
But Jinki didn't hear him.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	4. Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter makes it really obvious that I wrote this story with imperial units. Imperial units were chosen for no better reason than the fact that I feel inches and miles to be more poetic and centimeters and kilometers to be more clinical. And because the distances got imperial units, temperature had to be in degrees Fahrenheit. If you're used to 37, don't be startled by 98.6!

 

  
  
  
  
Taemin has a very faint scar on his right elbow. He still scratches at it absently sometimes, picking at the abnormally smooth patch of skin despite how there really is nothing to pick at, but it's rare for him to think about how he got it in the first place.  
  
  
  
It had been early summer, one of those days when the air smelled like sprinkler-made rainbows and freshly mown grass but the sun wasn’t scorching enough to add to that a trace of burnt asphalt wafting over from the roads. His older brother and his rowdy friends were over at the outdoor basketball court, all lanky and rough around the edges like the adolescents that they were.  
  
Taemin was a little ways removed from the pack, sitting on the swings by himself. The edge of the plastic seat was biting into the underside of his thighs and the metal chains felt slippery beneath his tender calluses, but he didn’t mind it too much. Somewhere along the line, he stopped paying attention to his brother’s game and started swinging in earnest.  
  
Back and forth, back and forth.

Legs bent then straight, bent then straight.  
  
  
  
When he was flying as high as the swing could go, bit by bit, with each oscillation, he inched his hands down the metal chains and leaned further and further back. Ignoring the rusty iron bar overhead with its peeling green paint, all he could see was blue, perfect homogeneous blue.  
  
The ceiling of his bedroom was just as homogenous, albeit white, but this blue felt nothing like a ceiling. Because as close and as solid as it seemed, Taemin knew it wasn’t. It was air, sixty-two miles of it, straight up – 78.09% nitrogen, 20.96% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.039% carbon dioxide, 0.001818% neon, 0.000524% helium, 0.000179% methane… And on the other side of these sixty-two miles of gases was outer space. And with outer space came a whole new horizon, forty-seven billion light years away.  
  
  
He remembered his third grade teacher asking his class what they wanted to be when they grew up after a careers presentation. He wasn’t the only one to raise his hand when the soft-spoken woman asked for potential astronauts in the crowd. It was an idea he still entertained, two years later, and whenever he looked up, he couldn’t help imagining what it would be like one day to be on the other side of the sky.  
  
But until he could cross the Kármán line, this blue would be the most beautiful and limitless thing.  
  
  
  
He spread his arms wide, so wide that he couldn’t even see his fingertips. But between them was an ellipse of pure uninterrupted blue.  
  
Blue was the color of dreams.

Blue was the color of hope.  
  
Blue was—  
  
  
  
  
He fell out of the swing.  
  
  
  
  
  


.....

  
  
  
  
  
_I want to ma-make that phone call...again._  
  
  
Taemin doesn’t answer. Instead, he keeps Jinki’s jaw cupped in his hands.  
  
Before he knew it, the ellipse of blue between his fingertips had become a human face. Jinki isn’t the most beautiful thing in the world. He isn’t as porcelain smooth. And he definitely isn’t a deep, seemingly endless blue. He is 60% water, otherwise made out of proteins and lipids, carbohydrates and DNA, inorganic ions and free radicals.  
  
But he is a lot closer, a lot more tangible. And as long as he isn’t sick, he is a perfect 98.6 degrees.  
  
  
_I w-want…mm…want to d-do it again._  
  
  
Already, Taemin can’t make out a single thing. He sniffs to keep his nose from running and pulls Jinki’s forehead against his own. Physiology tells him it’s the globus sensation that’s making it seem like his airway has closed up, but his heart disagrees and believes the cause to be the involuntary stutter in Jinki’s speech.  
  
It’s as if the older boy’s voice is stumbling through the bushes and the words can’t help but snag on the twigs here and there.  
  
  
  
  
_I just want…a-a second ch-chance._

  
  
  
  
  


......

  
  
  
  
  
“I just want…w……a second chance.” Jinki finally enunciated the thing that he’d been mumbling to himself about.  
  
Taemin wiggled around a bit where he was perched in one corner of Jinki’s bed. He didn’t know where to put his eyes or what to do with his hands, so he opted to pick at the paper towel wrapped around the zip-lock bag of ice cubes resting over Jinki’s foot. Or not ice _cubes_ per se – there were star-shaped ones and heart-shaped ones, all thanks to the flamingo pink ice tray Kibum had insisted on giving them at one point or another.  
  
  
“I’m not a-asking to redo _every_ thing. Doesn’t…it doesn’t h-have to be everything.” He subconsciously waved his hands around a little, making abstract gestures as if they could somehow clarify his words. “J-just a few…a few…… A few things would be good. O-or one even. I just want…just… Let me redo one thing.”  
  
Taemin glanced up at him with worry written in the angle of his eyebrows and Jinki suddenly panicked. His features erupted into life as if he were actually engaged in a bargaining war with Taemin, as if he were about to be denied his last chance at redemption.  
  
“Just one thing!” He held up a single finger, eyes wide and stricken. Taemin flinched at the sudden boom of the older boy’s voice, expression unknowingly mimicking Jinki’s because he didn’t know what was going on. “Only one thing! One thing’s enough…one thing……one thing…”  
  
Taemin’s lips parted but no sound came out.  
  
  
“Please?” The word fell out in a sharp little rush of air. Jinki twined his fingers together as if in prayer. “Please, please…just one thing……”  
  
  
  
_Please, please, please, please…_

Taemin feared that he would hyperventilate.  
  
  
  
“Hyung…?” He felt his own heart rate picking up pace. “What are you doing? Stop. Hyung, stop. Breathe slowly! Calm down!”  
  
The younger boy reached towards Jinki, but before his hands were halfway there, the older boy pounced forward and closed the rest of the distance between them. Clutching onto a startled Taemin, he begged, “I w-want to make that phone call...again. Just let me ta—I…I need to make it up to—”  
  
“Ow, you’re hurting me!” Taemin whimpered, involuntarily shrinking into himself.  
  
The older boy’s grip didn’t slacken but he bowed his head. He bowed his head so low that his nose was almost touching Taemin’s knee. Heat pricked along the rims of Taemin's eyes at the sight of his best friend practically grovelling in front of him. And so instead of complaining again of the pain in his arms, the younger boy shifted himself into a kneeling position. When he tried and tried but couldn’t get Jinki’s fingers to loosen, he settled instead for holding onto Jinki in return.  
  
  
“It’s okay.” He made himself say. “It’s okay. It’s okay…”

As if he could channel reassurance up through his palms into Jinki’s elbows.  
  
  
“I _need_ it. I really, really need it.”  
  
  
  
  
  
There was silence.  
  
  
  
  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“Hyung…” Taemin trailed off when he realized that he didn’t know what Jinki was apologizing for.  
  
But then for one brief moment, he was met with a pair of dark bottomless eyes. “I’m sorry. I know it doesn’t work like that. I know…”  
  
Jinki left the rest unsaid.  
  
  
  
_I know I can’t. I_ know _. But I want it and I need it._  
  
  
  
Taemin almost hugged him then, but he couldn’t do so even when Jinki finally let go. The tension evaporated from his overly taut muscles and along with it went all of his strength. He felt as if he didn’t have a single bone propping up his body. Softly, he apologized as well: for being weak, for being helpless, for being scared.  
  
“I’m sorry, hyung.”  
  
Jinki considered him for a moment before falling back onto his pillows, head turned away from Taemin and arms wrapped around himself. They stayed like that in perfect silence until Taemin gingerly leaned closer to see if Jinki was asleep.  
  
  
  
  
Jinki's eyelashes weren’t very long but they were very straight.

The soft shadows they cast were a light slate gray against his pale skin.  
  
  
  
  
“I just want another chance to talk to them.”  
  
  
  
  
  


......

  
  
  
  
  
Eight years after he fell out of the swing (and skipped two grades), Taemin changed his mind about the color blue.  
  
It was a Thursday.  
  
  
  
  
  
At their college, their student union runs a bunch of extracurricular mini-courses scheduled for late evenings or weekends. They are designed to be ‘life-enriching’, a chance for disgruntled students to pull their noses out of their textbooks and enjoy themselves, with _out_ alcohol (whether legally or illegally acquired). You just have to pay and sign up, then show up.  
  
There are mini-courses for all sorts of things: salsa dancing, horticulture, Italian cuisine. But when Taemin felt the weight of Jinki’s head landing on his shoulder as the ghostly white boy finally drifted off after two sleepless nights, he wished there had been a course for mending hearts. He wished that rather than learning how to make splints and practicing how to use an AED, he’d learned how to save a person whose wounds you couldn’t see and couldn’t touch, even if you cut him open on an operating table.  
  
  
A person who bled life and hope and happiness rather than blood.  
  
  
  
  
Taemin’s hand ghosted over the top of Jinki’s head and he smiled tiredly at how the static made fine strands of hair float up to his fingertips. He allowed himself to be a little bit proud, proud of the fact that although he had lost the first battle, he might not have lost the war. After all, on the very same day, late at night, he had won the second battle – he had argued and threatened and begged and promised his way into accompanying Jinki back home.  
  
_Hyung, you need me more than I need my goddamned GPA or my goddamned honors project!_  
  
He allowed himself to be a little proud of that declaration. The only thing that could have made it better was if he’d also admitted that he too needed Jinki. He needed Jinki more than he could put into words. Although his whole life had been defined by his academic achievements, he realized that there was more to it more now. More to it than his midterm next week, than the lab sessions he planned on skipping, than the classes he won’t attend.  
  
  
And so Taemin reached quietly into Jinki’s lap and picked up his right index finger. Eyes flickering nervously to the older boy’s face, he held his breath and gingerly pulled Jinki’s hand into his own.  
  
Jinki’s palm was broader than his, thicker, fleshier, but his fingers weren’t as long. They looked kind of funny because he always kept his nails clipped almost all the way even though his nail beds were already naturally short. There were calluses at the base of every digit (except his thumb) and on the sides of his index and middle fingers. Two healing paper cuts decorated the back of his pinkie. And when Taemin examined the ridges carved out on the pads of Jinki’s fingers, he counted the number of arches, loops, and whorls.  
  
  
He looked up when he felt the train moving again, pulling out of the small midway station. But before long, he couldn’t see anything except miles and miles of brown field exposed after snowmelt and miles and miles of blue sky. A few strokes of white had been painted with a flick of the wrist across the azure canvas; _cirrus uncinus_ , he thought, all the while tracing lullabies into the valleys between Jinki’s knuckles, into the webs between his fingers, into the rivers that traversed his palm. There was no sign of where they’d come from, no sign of where they were going. It was easy to imagine a different purpose for their trip, easy to imagine a different identity for both him and the boy sleeping on his shoulder.  
  
A soft sigh escaped his lips; a deep rumbling filled his ears.  
  
Taemin gently squeezed Jinki’s index finger as the world shook and crumbled outside the window, all of its colors fragmented by the moisture in his eyes. He squinted a little harder and the scenery that filled his field of vision blurred even more around the edges. And...and somehow everything was alright.  
  
  
  
They were headed for the horizon, that was all. They were headed for the horizon.  
  
Where the sky wasn’t a brilliant blue.

Where the earth wasn’t a steady brown.  
  
Where shapes faded and colors were washed out and everything became a hazy shade of pale slate gray.  
  
Where the world _seemed_ to end, but no! No, the world didn’t end there. Of course not.  
  
It was just a place where trees and ants were about the same height and red was no different from yellow and yellow was no different from green. It was a place that made no sense unless you looked out of the corner of your eye in pretend halfheartedness and secretly sketched in the details yourself. A place meant to prove you both right and wrong.  
  
  
  
  
Taemin imagined that that was what the future looked like.

The future. Dreams. Hope.  
  
  
  
  
A hazy shade of slate gray.  
  
Gray, with a hint of azure that said: _maybe, just maybe_.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	5. Superheroes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sucked at weepy dialogue. I sucked at angry dialogue. Still do.
> 
> GCS 5 = E2, Vt, M2 means a score of five on the Glasgow Coma Scale: 2 for eye response, default 1 for verbal response (because t = intubation), and 2 for motor response (which corresponds to the decerebrate response described). Technical stuff, not really important for understanding.
> 
> To be clear, in this universe, Jinki has two younger sisters.

 

  
  
  
  
Taemin woke up from the sound of rain.  
  
  
Or at least he woke up _to_ the sound of it. He was not normally light enough of a sleeper to be roused by the persistent pitter-patter against the window – double-paned and tightly shut, no less – but there was no denying the fact that here he was, suddenly awake in the middle of the night.  
  
  
  
It took him a few seconds to orient himself in the unfamiliar setting – the firmer and narrower mattress much departed from the shape memorized by his shoulders and hips, ceiling of a different texture and walls set closer together, an unfamiliar scent gingerly curling itself up against the inside of his nostrils. Rubbing the blurriness from his eyes, he sat upright. Under him, the bed frame squeaked quietly in protest. Outside, the storm continued drumming its fingers against the glass.  
  
He lifted aside the thin scratchy curtain. There wasn’t much to see; the bellies of the clouds hung low, a sombre rolling blue against which clusters of low-rise apartment complexes lined up their ultramarine silhouettes. But he only knew what to make of those shifting smudges because he’d seen them before in daylight. Right then, when the darkness had stolen the colors from his eyes, when the rain had gnawed away all the once distinct edges, he could only connect the dots in his memory and pretend.  
  
  
_Cirrus uncinus_ , he thought again, the herald of a storm.  
  
Beads of water flung themselves against the glass and burst into spectacular shapes. They drew out slightly slanted and undulating paths – downward, downward, ever downward.  
  
  
  
Hooking his arms beneath his knees and pushing his big toes together, Taemin thought back to the train station, to the two faces he sort of knew but didn’t really, to what had decorated their cheeks. It’d been sunny then, when the train had followed its tracks to the destination they couldn’t escape, sunny, but already noticeably warmer than early morning.  
  
And there they had stood, the girls, with their necks bright in matching red hand-knit scarves, fingers intertwined, knuckles a pearly white. Smiles (helpless fractures across their lips really) speaking of as much grief as they did happiness – they had been the gateway for a whole slew of other expressions to which he couldn’t as cleanly put a name. There were so many things that were broken and so much to mend, but when the three of them – Jinki and the girls – had wound themselves together like strings in a braided rope, everything had been oh, oh so complete.  
  
  
There had been so much love in the lines of Jinki’s broad shoulders, so much resolution in the planes of his slightly bowed back, so much tenderness in the arch of his strong arms. Standing a little ways away from the trio alongside the luggage, Taemin had marveled at the sight of that, the sight of Jinki’s back. Perhaps it had been strange to be hit with such a notion right there and then, but he had thought that it was beautiful – that Jinki was beautiful – because he could put Atlas to shame.  
  
Because he was holding up the whole world.  
  
  
  
  
And to Taemin, it’d been like going back to the childhood he never quite had. To a time of superheroes, colorful tights, and obligatory capes, except Jinki wasn’t an inked and toned drawing sandwiched between the pages of his brother’s comic books. Jinki wasn’t a plastic figurine posed in the company of Superman and Batman and Spiderman as they lined themselves up on his brother’s book shelf.  
  
  
  
  
  
He was human. He was made of the same stuff that Taemin was made of.  
  
  
And he was beautiful.  
  
  
  
  
  


......

  
  
  
  
  
Before he realized what he was doing, Taemin was dragging his fingertip across the cold glass. GCS 5 = E2, Vt, M2. He traced the last number – the ‘two’ – three more times before he let the stroke trail off into meaningless swirls. M2. His heart deflated right back to its original size. M2. He shoved the heels of his hands into his eyes and mussed up his already messy hair. M2. Five deep breaths later, he was able to bring himself to glance at the faint slivers of light delineating the door from the rest of the darkness.  
  
  
_GCS 5. M2. M2, M2, M2…_  
  
  
  
Decerebrate response upon stimulation with pain.  
  
Almost robotically, Taemin extended both of his arms against his sides, perfectly straight, before slowly turning them inwardly. Decerebrate response. Head arched back, clenched jaw, extension of limbs, abduction of arms, internal rotation of shoulder, pronation of forearm, extension of wrist.  
  
  
  
His hands shook.  
  
  
  
  
  


_It says five._

_What?_

_She’s a five._

_…Oh. But you learned in class that a deeper coma doesn’t mean—_

_Yeah, maybe,_ if _she had scored well for motor response. But the chart says it’s only a two. Abnormal posturing only makes her chances that much worse. I learned_ that _in class too._

  
  
  
  
  
  
The futon laid out on between the bed Taemin had been sleeping on and the opposite wall was cold, the sheets unwrinkled. It was obvious that no one had slept in it. Peaking out into the hallway, the only light he could see was coming around the corner from the direction of the living room.  
  
Huddled between the door and the door frame, he strained to catch the conversation.  
  
  
  
“Why are you acting this way? It’s not fair! This isn’t like you!”  
  
  
Her voice sounded different without the distortion of the phone and this time it was colored more by indignation rather than hysteria, but he could still recognize it. _Is this—is this…I’m sorry, is this Lee Taemin-ssi? I can’t find—I…I—my name is Haerim. I know you don’t know who—I, I’m Lee Jinki’s younger sister. I ne-need my brother, to talk to him…but I can’t get—th-the calls won’t connect… He……my parents…our……my brother…do you, do you know—_  
  
  
“Haerim, what do you want from me?”  
  
“Not _this_!”  
  
“What _—_ ”  
  
“Not you making all the decisions by yourself without any input from us! I thought we’re having a discussion.”  
  
“Well we are not.”  
  
  
And then there was silence for a while. It was broken by a whimper, followed by some indistinct noises and a few soft whispers. Taemin could imagine the two girls cuddled together on the old couch, opposite Jinki.  
  
  
“Oppa, I get it. You’re the oldest. You feel responsible for us, but Joohyo and I are responsible too. We’re all equals in this. So why can’t you listen to what I have to say?”  
  
“You’ve already said all that you have to say twenty minutes ago and I’ve already told you why I can’t have that. You don’t understand what this means and how important it is. You’re in your senior year. You have less than a year till you graduate high school—”  
  
“God, stop it! Shut up!” She raised her voice.  
  
“Haerim, don’t speak to me like that.” There was uncharacteristic anger in his tone, real anger, but Taemin thought Jinki sounded more sad than angry.  
  
“Then fine! _Fine_! If a piece of paper is so important then I’ll get my diploma. But in exchange you have to do the same and you’re going to let me go work after graduation.”  
  
“No. That’s not happening either. I have—”  
  
“I don’t want to be babied by you over something like this!”  
  
“I’m not babying you.”  
  
“Then treat me the same way you’re treating yourself.”  
  
  
A pause.  
  
  
“…It was a mistake.”  
  
“What was a mistake?”  
  
“Sending me to…I, I should've just stayed and…nothing. Nothing! Anyway, this isn’t up for negotiation. After high school, you’re going to university. Work hard and get all the scholarships and bursaries you can to pay for tuition and living costs if you feel so guilty about it. Just...work hard. Work hard, okay? And don’t worry about anything else.”  
  
“I don’t _want_ —”  
  
“Haerim, you don’t _know_ that! You don’t know what you want at this point! Not really! And you don’t know the worth of what you have. You’ve always been the brightest bulb in the box; you’re meant for it. If you give everything up, you’ll definitely regret it later. Maybe right now it looks like a good idea—”  
  
“Don’t!” She was speaking through her teeth. “Don’t you talk _down_ to me like I am a _child_.”  
  
“You are barely seventeen—” She cut him off.  
  
“Oh _please_. Age isn’t what makes adults out of people—” And he cut her off in return.  
  
“—What have you seen?—”  
  
“—I’ve seen plenty—”  
  
“—What have you done? What do you know? You _are_ a child—”  
  
“—No I am not! I am not! Joohyo is, maybe, but I’m not! Don’t make me into a child because it’s convenient for you, just so you can do whatever you think we should do. I’m old enough! I know enough! I know enough to know what I want—”  
  
“—You don’t—”  
  
“—I do! _I do_! You don’t have the right to decide that—”  
  
“—Haerim—”  
  
“—Don’t act like you’re better and you know better just because you’re older than me—”  
  
“—Haerim, stop, listen—”  
  
“—You might have helped mom support us the year dad couldn’t work, but it doesn’t mean that I have nothing. I’ve always helped out around the house and I’ve had my share of taking care of everyone. I’ve been taking care of Joohyo all along. And I’ve had a part-time—”  
  
“—Haerim!”  
  
“ _What?!_ ”  
  
  
  
Even though he wasn’t there in the living room with them, even though the words had yet to be spoken, Taemin could see it. He could see those eyes, those dark, dark eyes. The things that filled them, the feelings that – sometimes, when Jinki wasn’t careful, maybe, possibly – would spill over.  
  
He wanted to reach out and catch them as they tumbled down his cheeks.  
  
  
  
  
  
“It’s what mom and dad would have wanted for you.”  
  
  
  
  
  
Silence.  
  
  
  
  
  
“…Oh.” It came out as a small squeak.  
  
  
  
“Oh—” Her voice hitched. “Oh you didn’t…you didn’t…” It quivered. “No. No, you—” And everything shattered.  
  
  
  
  
“ _GO TO HELL!!!_ ”  
  
“Hae—”  
  
“Go to _hell_!”  
  
  
  
  
It was so raw. So, so raw.  
  
_Fuck you._ Fuck _you! Go to hell! Why? Why would you even say that?_ Why? Why? Why? _Don’t say that. Don’t use them like that! Don’t—shut up! How could you? You can’t do this. You_ can’t _do this to me! Fuck you!_  
  
The timber of her voice was warped almost beyond recognition.  
  
  
  
  
The measured outrage from earlier, the barely contained energy, the earnest attempts at reasoning it out and fairly winning the argument – everything disintegrated into a full-throated cry. It was animalistic, callous, hideous. And mixed in there somewhere, a smaller voice was wailing – _eonni, oppa…don’t fight… oppa I’m scared…eonni, eonni…stop…please… eonni…_  
  
  
It took only one sentence to break Haerim down and Jinki did just that. He broke her down.  
  
  
  
But in the gradually widening cracks between her words, between her sobs, there was the honest hurt, the honest fear, the child who couldn’t see herself but nonetheless was seen by her brother. For every ‘I hate you’ spoken by her lips, her fists, Jinki murmured something in return.  
  
_I know. I understand. I’m sorry. I love you. You know I love you. You know I’ll always, always love you._  
  
  
  
  
  


......

  
  
  
  
  
Taemin shrank into himself under the duvet, all ten fingers curled under all ten toes, holding on tight. The drumming of the rain was out of synch with the tattoo of his heart and he couldn’t remember the feeling of looking at the horizon. Because he’d lost another battle, a battle that he didn’t know was going on, one he couldn’t fight and one he couldn’t salvage. Because even though Jinki was still under the same roof, the older boy was already a little too far away.  
  
_I’m here, I’m here!_ He wished he could say. _It wasn't a mistake. You didn't mean that. Because it wasn't. It really wasn't._  
  
  
  
When a figure slipped almost soundlessly into the room some time later, Taemin was still awake. But entirely hidden from head to toe, he held his breath and pretended. He pretended he didn't hear, didn't know. He thought it was all over and Jinki had come in to lie down and finally sleep, but after a while of quiet noises, he heard the door click shut again.  
  
Taemin sank his teeth into the knuckle of his thumb.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
_Don’t leave, don’t leave..._  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
